Many of you know that when our son died we planted a sour cherry tree in our yard to remember him by. We planted it in the early early spring and it was not expected to have cherries on it that year but it totally did. We had enough cherries to make one pie for the previous two years and now this year our sour cherry tree produced enough cherries for TWO cherry pies. We made this one and have quite a few more frozen in our freezer for one more. Henry also enjoyed picking many of them and sharing them with his friends. I think we may have had enough for three pies but the bugs, birds, and babies got to them first!
Close up of pie in my new bakeware pan. Thanks Gammie!
We love everything about our sour cherry tree...the million blossoms in the spring, watching the little cherries ripen and seeing all the red cherries plump up. They are very tart to eat right off the tree, but it reminds us of Georgie and the pain we still feel with his absence, but then we whip them up into a delicious pie and it turns into our most favorite desert. I am grateful for his presence in our lives and we think of him daily and we will always remember him every time we see a sour cherry tree and are reminded of how sweet our reunion will be when we taste our delicious pie.
The pie in front of the tree. See all the cherries left over?
Bea snacking on the cherries on the lower branches.
Thought this was a cute shot. We love our cherry tree.
Yes, I said it. Kale is my favorite new treat. I have been getting all sorts of strange things in my CSA(community supported agriculture) box that I have had to find new recipes for and I was really afraid I wouldn't find a good recipe for my giant bunch of kale. I looked up a recipe online and this one got four stars and I totally agree. My kids were eating these and Bea was asking for "mo' mo' mo'!"
Kale Chips
Cut the stems out of the kale and cut the leafy part up into bite sized pieces,
Lightly coat the kale in olive oil and spread them out on a few cookie sheets. Don't pile too much on one sheet.
Sprinkle with seasoned salt or any herb/salt mixture you like.
Bake in an oven at 350 for ten to fifteen minutes until crispy but not burned. Watch them carefully!
Enjoy! And you will. I promise.
I'm already trying to get back into the things I did before having Clementine. I enjoy doing just about anything crafty or sporty. I still have three weeks before I can hit the treadmill and work myself into the ground to get in shape. Until then I'll stick with crafting. This is the latest thing inspired by some really cute barrettes that were sent to me by my friend Sarah. It only took about an hour to make all these.
Basically I got a bunch of different colors of felt, buttons, and little flippy clips, sewed them together(you can hot glue them together if you want) and then glue the clip on and they're done. You can get pretty creative.
Justin is obsessed with Arugula. I grew a bunch in planter boxes this year and it is doing great. We have been eating bruschetta (officially pronounced bru-SKET-ta in case you were wondering) any time we can. Justin toasts the bread either in the toaster or over the grill, then we lightly rub a clove of garlic over one side, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with kosher salt and then add toppings. Our favorite is parmigiano cheese and arugula on top. Sounds really simple but it's pretty incredible, especially if you get good bread.
How could I be so bad at updating this blog? So sorry people.
So we've had some banana drama and I wanted to ask you all if you've ever experienced this.....I bought a bunch of very green bananas two weeks ago. Usually they ripen in a few days and occasionally they stay green but get brown spots and they're still ripe but just look green. This time, however, the bananas never ripened. I had them for almost two weeks and before I threw what was left of them into the garbage, I tried to open it and it was just like the first day, hard as a rock and unpeelable. Henry was crying for bananas for two weeks and every day I assured him that they would be ripe soon and they NEVER matured one bit. I wish I had the patience to just let them sit to see if they would ripen over a month or two, but with the impending baby I couldn't waste the time. Has this ever happened to any of you?
So, then I went to the store for more bananas and what do you know, they're all over ripe. I finally found a decent bunch of bananas that had a tiny bit of green left on the stem and would have to be eaten in two days or less but I thought we would all devour them quickly since we'd been depriving ourselves. While I was at ALDI (our favorite discount grocery store that makes you pay for a cart and bags, or bring your own) Henry had to go poop, Bea had a meltdown and Henry was picking hot peppers off the plants for sale and trying to feed them to Bea. During the fiasco I forgot to buy bags and I didn't have any in the car.I decided that I could get home without bags so I loaded everything, loose, in the back of my car and drove home, hearing the watermelons rolling around and back and forth with every turn. I guess I wasn't careful with where I put the bananas because the two watermelons found their way to where the bananas were and slightly squished them, but not enough for me to notice until yesterday when I went to finally eat a nice ripe banana and it was like a banana peel filled with baby food. Not one of them was acceptable to eat. Justin later told me that he tried to peel one and it just fell over limp.
So we went from the most rock solid bananas to complete mush. How could it be so hard to get a decent banana and how else do I eat all my nutella? Please, let me find good bananas tomorrow at Costco.
Henry and I had a blast making this real sour cherry pie. I just realized that I only have two frozen packs of cherries left to make pies out of:( Good thing cherry season is right around the corner! This cherry pie is my usual recipe from Bon Appetit with a full Meyer lemon zest in it along with Meyer lemon juice. The flavor was incredible and this pie turned out better than usual with no super runny middle. My crust did get a little drowned in overflow from the sides but the good thing about a pie is that it never has to look good to taste good! I used some stamps that Justin got for me at William's Sonoma to make all the leaves. I just love the effect. I think I'll make one for this weekend for my friend Christi when she comes up to visit.
